


Befriending By Halves

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: 5 +1 things, 5 Times, Abandonment, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Banter, Blood and Injury, Developing Friendships, Dysfunctional Relationships, Explanations, Fights, Injury Recovery, Insults, Major Character Injury, Multiple Personalities, Multiple Selves, Nightmares, Opposites Attract, Public Humiliation, Teasing, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 06:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12150381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: Dark and Wilford have been at it for a long time and they know each other's games all too well. Wilford is practically bursting with good and clean, happy-go-lucky light (albeit with a few shootings and knife fights) and Dark lives up to his name.Some say opposites attract, and Wilford intends to find out if that's true of friendships too.(Alternative Title: Three Times Wilford Warfstache Tried to Befriend Darkiplier, One Time He Gave Up, and One Time Dark Befriended Him)





	Befriending By Halves

1.

“Wilford…I’m going to say this once, calmly. _Reasonably_. Let go of my face.”

“Aww, but we share the same face, don’t we, Darkie?" Wilford pointed out, squishing the other Ego’s face a bit more firmly. “And it looks so much better with a little smi-i-i-le, doesn’t it?! C’mon, c’mon, do it for me-e-e-e-e!”

Dark’s aura began billowing away from his body and his signature creaking and ear-piercing ring spiked, yet Wilford remained exactly where he was, a glowing spot of gold and pink clashing with the inky blacks and reds. “I know you can do it,” he continued, unfazed and beaming. “Be a good Iplier! All of the Ipliers are meant to smile!”

“Wilford,” Dark growled through clenched teeth, almost unheard beneath the ringing. “That is where you’re  _wrong_. I am not like you…or like  _him_ …and I never will be.”

Wilford continued to smile despite these words, but his moustache twitched and his eyes dimmed ever so slightly. “There’s a lot to smile about, Dark, even for you,” he continued briskly after a pause, acting as if the other hadn’t spoken as he lightly shook Dark’s chin between his fingers, as if hoping to encourage him. “Just think about your—your conquest of the world or somethin’! That’s sure to get a little grin out of you!”

“Not—” Dark spat, twisting away as Wilford tried to put an arm over his shoulders, “—while it’s entirely out of my _reach!_ ” He finally succeeded in wrenching his face free from Wilford’s surprisingly steely grip and spun on his heel to face him, smoothing down his suit with jerky swipes.  He didn’t realize that his hands were trembling. “You may be able to see the light in everything, Wilford—maybe because you’re constantly covered in it. Just look at what you’re wearing!”

Wilford instinctively glanced down at his brightly colored outfit and then looked back up just as quickly. He was still smiling, though it seemed a bit less genuine now.

“Now you’re looking at me,” Dark concluded fiercely, spreading his arms out as black tendrils of smog wound around them. “I would hope you aren’t colorblind by now and can see the truth: I am not good. I am not light. You’d do best to remember that.” Wilford was uncharacteristically quiet as Dark strode past him, only pausing once to lean into his ear. “There’s _always_ more darkness than light.”

 

2.

It had probably been a stupid idea, but Wilford was renowned for those among his peers, among the other Egos. It was unfortunately rare that any of them saw the truth:

Wilford Warfstache was _not_ stupid. He never had been and he never would be. Maybe he could be classified as a sociopath by some standards. Maybe sometimes he lacked a little forethought with his actions and maybe sometimes people died because of it, but he _always_ had something upstairs, even if it was something others would find foolish. In this case, what he had upstairs was his latest stunt.

 _It wasn’t even anything spectacular_ , he told himself, blinking a few times against the hot spotlights. _It was a long shot._ Even so, he wasn’t sure if he was angry or simply…confused.

He had thrown together a script for an interview, he had convinced the other Egos and Mark to give him the recording studio, and he had even changed his shirt—as much as he hated pastels—so it would be less obnoxious. In front of a camera, recording live, he had invited Dark to come onto his show.

 _I offered him the chance to…We could’ve had all the fans’ attention! He could’ve had a video without Mark holding him back! He could’ve had exactly what he wanted,_ Wilford mused incredulously, glancing hurriedly around and straining his ears for any faint, telltale ringing. All he heard was his own heartbeat, picking up speed and sinking into the pit of his stomach simultaneously. His palms were getting sweaty as he stood alone in front of the camera, unable to think of anything to say.

Dark had abandoned him to this, actually _hoping_ that he would look like a fool. Wilford had no doubt that he was watching this somewhere, probably with a malicious grin sliding over his face.

 _He didn’t want to have a video with_ me _. He would’ve done it if I was outta the picture._

At that thought, he steeled himself, locked narrowed eyes with the waiting lens for a few seconds, and then turned on his heel and walked away.

 

3.

It wasn’t any secret when one of the Personas had a nightmare. Each of them displayed it in their own way, some more subtle than others, but the walls were thin and most of them were light sleepers.

Naturally, the thunderous crash that came from Dark’s room brought everyone into the hall. Wilford glanced around at them all, chuckling lowly at their various states of disarray. The Host had a hand against his doorframe for support, his coat draped around him like a blanket. Bim and Dr. Iplier looked a bit like squirrels, their hair sticking up haphazardly, eyes wide and glassy as they hugged themselves against the cold outside their rooms. The Googles were still as pristine as ever, though the icons on their chests were at half-power.

Warily they eyed the new cracks in the wall next to Dark’s door and the pieces of plaster scattered across the floor. Branches of smoke were seeping underneath the bedroom door into the hall, cautioning any potential intruders.

Smoke or not, Wilford and his natural curiosity were not to be deterred. “Well, _someone_ has to see what’s going on,” he huffed, breaking the silence and shouldering past Dr. Iplier, who automatically latched onto his arm.

“Wilford, you know how he gets,” he warned in a low voice, rough from sleep.

“I know, I know, Doc, I’ll be careful,” Wilford promised, completely indifferent. When Dr. Iplier kept ahold of his arm, Wilford rolled his eyes dramatically, whisking the limb out of reach so he could knit his fingers together behind his back as he strode down the hall. There was a biting chill in the air, one which sharpened as he drew closer to Dark’s door. The handle was like ice against his fingers, so he wrenched it open in one brief motion—a motion quick enough that he saw Dark startle.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled, the echo behind his voice vibrating through the walls. Was the slight tremble in that echo imaginary?

Wilford slipped inside and closed the door before answering, just to make sure he couldn’t be propelled back immediately. Of course, Dark _could_ send him through the wall, but that was beside the point.

“I’m here to chase away all the bad dreams, Darkie,” he quipped, trailing off as he noticed the state of the room. Black and red slime clung to the walls, viscous trails of it sliding down into sticky puddles. Miasma stained every free space, wisps of it dancing over cracks in the ceiling and floor.

Taken aback, Wilford glanced at Dark, who was actively trying to burn holes into him with his stare. It wasn’t as successful as he hoped; he didn’t look much better than his room. Unlike the other Personas, he had no pajamas; he was still dressed in his signature suit, though his shirt and coat hung in rumpled twists on his frame and his tie was undone. His bangs hung low in his face, though some tufts stuck up at odd angles, as though he had run his hand through his hair, and the shadows under his eyes made his cheeks look almost hollow.

For the first time in a very long time, Wilford wasn’t sure what to say. This didn’t even look like the Dark he knew. At last he decided to be matter-of-fact.

“You woke all of us up,” he began. Bad move; Dark had lunged to his feet before he had even finished. The wisps of smoke around the corners rushed to their master, enveloping him in a whistling, churning aura. Wilford compulsively pressed against the back wall, straining to breathe as the vortex picked up speed and snatched the air out of his lungs.

“ _Get out!_ ” Dark roared, thick coils of his nebula lashing out and denting the wall as Wilford ducked, cursing. Covering his head, he disappeared in a cloud of pink that was swallowed by the blackout as if it had never been there.

 

4.

The crack of Wilford’s elbow connecting with his jaw took Dark completely by surprise. He stumbled awkwardly backward, painful black and red static bursting behind his eyes, and recovered his balance long enough to sputter a few useless syllables before his counterpart lashed out again, shoving him so hard that he had to swing his arms wildly to stay standing. 

“What is wrong with you?!” Wilford hollered, bristling as he stood over Dark's hunched form. “You tried to kill Mark!”

That’s what this was about? Dark returned to his proper height and yanked his dress coat straight, growling, “As if you honestly care; you've done it before too.”

“But not  _really!_  Do you know what would happen if he  _really_  died?!  _We_  would too!” Wilford shrieked, flailing his arms madly as Dark had just a minute ago. “You—you can’t just murder us, all of us, all of him! And yourself too, y’know that?! You wanna kill someone, fine! Maybe I’ll even help ya, but not _him!_ Not _me!_ Not _you!_ We need him!” He deflated a little after a pause, wondering what else he could say, and finally squared his shoulders. “And you—you—you can’t just do it so  _soon_  again either! You’re taking away my spotlight!”

Dark blinked a few times, processing this as he rubbed his jaw with one hand and smoothed the wrinkles out of his coat with the other. When he spoke, his voice was dry and his jaw ached. “You do know your reasoning is flawed.” It wasn’t the tone of a question.

Wilford blinked back, readjusting his suspenders and then twisting them again as he shrugged. “So what if it is? S’still true.” After another beat, he released a harsh outbreath, shaking his head with an intensity to match, muttering, “Y’know what? I’m sick of you and your—I’m not doing this anymore.”

“Are you challenging me?” Dark sneered, tilting his head patronizingly. “We both know how that would go.”

“Firstly, I’m just as powerful as you are,” Wilford snapped, all traces of bubbliness gone. “Second, that’s the point: I’m not gonna challenge you again. Never thought I’d say this, but Wilford Warfstache is throwing in the towel—giving notice, quitting, two-hundred percent done with you. And what’s it matter? You’re just a virus anyway. S’not like I could ever befriend a _virus_.” With a parting shrug, Wilford made his exit before Dark could muster any surprise or hurt, much less anger.

 

+1.

As soon as he emerged from his room on a mission for food, Dark noticed spots of blood staining the hallway floor. His steps slowed—only slightly, but _just_ slightly. It wasn’t entirely uncommon to see blood, given the vast, clashing personalities of the other Egos, but he certainly would have heard the scuffle—as well as Dr. Iplier’s admonitions for it—from his room. All of the other doors were closed, which would indicate that no one else was awake yet.

Setting the option of food aside for the moment, Dark traced the blood trail as it graduated from droplets to streaks, leading precisely where he had intended to go all along: the kitchen. He stopped up short when he saw Wilford there, sitting on the counter and swinging his legs like a child.

They hadn’t interacted much since Wilford gave up on his efforts to “befriend” him, which Dark considered a mercy. Wilford was a wild card, an explosive, baffling, endlessly chaotic distraction who could only get in the way of whatever Dark wanted to achieve. Therefore it wasn’t any wonder that Wilford didn’t even glance at him, too busy dunking something unidentified into a glass of milk. His entire right side was stained in magenta, a blinding contrast with his yellow shirt, and Dark eyed it with resignation.

“Don’t tell me you stabbed another one of your contestants on a late night show,” he scoffed.

To his credit, Wilford didn’t take the bait, sparing him nothing but a rude gesture and a mumbled curse before snatching a chocolate bar off the counter and dunking it into the milk alongside the unidentified object. He didn’t even bother to remove the wrapping—or clean his hands after a kill, Dark noticed with disgust; his fingers were stained the same sickly shade as his shirt and there were swirls of pink in the milk where it had washed in.

Something about that seemed…wrong. The ring in his aura lowering to a suspicious buzz, Dark closed the distance a few steps. “You might as well explain. I don’t believe any of the others would take as kindly to finding out there’s a body to be disposed of somewh—”

Wilford cut him off with a barking laugh. “What d’you mean, _kind?_ It’s nothin’ you need to concern your dark little head about, is it? Right? Right. So ol’ Warfie’s not going to take any of that when you don’t even mean it.” Setting his glass down with enough force that it cracked, he launched himself off the counter and across the room toward the hall.

Halfway through liftoff, however, his legs went out from underneath him and the yelp he let out when he hit the floor was a sound Dark hadn’t thought it was possible for either of them to make. It pinned him where he was for several seconds, frozen, as Wilford struggled to rise and clasp his side simultaneously.

“You idiot.” Dark had no memory of crossing the distance toward him or of dragging him into a sitting position, much less getting on his knees next to him and start peeling away the sopping shirt. The first thing he saw when he looked at him face to face was that Wilford was completely ashen, overcome with an expression of pure shock. Was that because he expected Dark to let him bleed out?

“It was nothin’,” he whispered numbly, eyes wide. “I thought it was theirs. They barely scratched me; I—I didn’t even feel it—”

“Stop talking,” Dark interrupted severely, grabbing his hand and returning it to his side. “Keep that there while I wake the doctor.”

“It hurts,” Wilford complained, doing his best to squirm and shivering instead.

“Of course it hurts! You’ve been bleeding out and you didn’t even _notice!_ ” Dark hissed, stopping himself just short of grabbing Wilford’s shoulders and giving him whiplash to boot. Instead he lunged to his feet and jogged briskly toward Dr. Iplier’s room, dragging him out of bed by the arm and quite literally throwing him at his patient before he had managed to form a protest.

***

“You…saved him,” Dr. Iplier stated slowly, trying to process this as he looked Dark up and down with open bewilderment.

“No. _You_ saved him,” Dark shot back, compulsively moving to tug his tie straight and then thinking better of it when he noticed his hands had bloodstains. He fussed with them for a few moments, rubbing them together to no avail. It was easier to focus on that than on the fact that he had just helped someone who could be considered one of Mark’s allies.

“What would have happened,” he asked a moment later, hoping his tone seemed entirely impersonal, “if he had died?”

Dr. Iplier reeled back slightly, eyes narrowing as he read Dark’s mind. Any hint of respect that could have been there vanished. “A part of all of us would have died,” he declared scathingly. “We’re all our own people, but we all come from Mark. If Wilford had died, Mark would have felt it and so would we.” Bravely he stepped up, almost nose to nose with Dark yet just short of touching his aura. “And Mark would have known _you_ were responsible. I would make sure.”

“Go easy on him, Doc,” Wilford spoke up tiredly, making his presence known and waving a hand to stop the doctor’s half-formed squawk of indignation. “I know, I know. Shouldn’t be up and about cos I was dying and all. Don’t get your stethoscope in a twist; I just gotta talk with Darkie for a minute or two and then I’m poofin’ myself back to my room to rest up.”

“I suggest you do that now, Wilford,” Dark rebutted him in distaste as Dr. Iplier threw up his hands and excused himself. “I’m in no mood for a conversation.”

“Too bad.” Hugging himself tightly, Wilford took a breath and then winced. “You probably already know what I’m gonna ask, but I’ll ask anyway…”

“I’d rather you _didn’t_.”

“Why’d you help? Why’d you even bother trying?”

“That’s my prerogative,” Dark took the easy way out. Wilford glared, but it wasn’t nearly as intimidating as it was when he was at full strength.

“C’mon, just tell me already!”

“Well, as you just heard, Dr. Iplier explained that if you had died, it would have diminished the rest of us, including me. Naturally I need to be at full strength if I’m going to take over the channel.”

“But you didn’t know that when you were helping,” Wilford insisted. When Dark couldn’t think of another evasion quickly enough, he shuffled forward slightly, threatening, “When I heal, I’m gonna keep comin’ back until you tell me, Darkiplier, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. You know we’re evenly matched; the best you can do is hope that I’ll go away, but I won’t! I’m gonna—”

“Fine,” Dark spat, the finality of the word shutting the other Ego up. What followed was a long minute of silence, during which Dark fidgeted where he stood and Wilford studied him expectantly, and then Dark clenched his fists with the effort of forming his next words. “Look. Will, I…respect you.”

The shocked expression Wilford had been wearing earlier returned in full glory. He blinked a few times, took a step back and then recovered it. “You, uh, what?”

Dark sighed through his teeth. “I respect you.” He was mildly surprised to discover that it was easier to say the second time. “I always have.”

Of all reactions he expected, a burst of laughter wasn’t one of them. Regardless of the pain in his side, Wilford leaned against the nearby wall, practically cackling with glee. Dark stared at him incredulously, unsure what to make of that. All he knew was that it annoyed him, so he clenched his fists even tighter, until his nails were biting into his palms, and then moved to turn away. Wilford’s next words stopped him:

“Ohh, Darkie…this is it!” he exclaimed, eyes shining. “I can already tell it’s meant to be! We’re gonna be workin’ together, and it’s going to be so much _fun!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> At loooong last, I managed to write a full length story ;w;  
> The remark... Crap. Two words into the description and I've already made a pun. Remark. ReMARK. 
> 
> Anyway. The comment Dark made to Wilford in Markiplier TV was interesting to me: "Look...Will, I respect you. I always have!" That made me wonder what kind of relationship they might have that we don't get to see. I have a feeling they feed on each other's chaos; Dark thinks of Warfie as his wild card and Warfie thinks of Dark as his partner in crime. This is what came out of those musings! I hope you enjoyed! Leave a kudos or a comment to tell me what you thought; I'd love to hear from you!


End file.
